My mother and I just moved into a spacious two story
house a few weeks ago. We had spent weeks driving
around and looking for houses until we just decided to
go for a new one. The prices didn’t seem to be
drastically different. With an old house we would be
buying the land but with a new house we are only buying
the house. An older house has double the lot size but
usually it has only two floors. We were looking for a
basement to use as the recreational room. We bought a
house not too far from our old one so that I could
attend the same school.
My mother had started a small successful restaurant and
she had me run it for her whenever she was too busy
with the marketing end of it. But my job was easy; all
I had to do was come in for a few hours and take care
of the money and head home.
Early on, my mother took it on herself to finish the
basement because she had experience with home
improvements. She single handedly prevented our old
house from falling apart. She had always admitted to
being a bit of a tomboy. But looking at her you
couldn’t tell. My mother, who went by the name Hanh,
was thirty-six but she looked twenty-six. She is second
generation Chinese, which meant that she was born and
brought up in the US. Hanh had always been trim due to
her running around in the restaurant keeping it under
control. She had shoulder-length black hair that always
seemed to shine. That was my opinion. But my friends
had a different view; they often said that she was
better looking then some import models.